Chapter 32
32
Harper strutted into the pristine lobby with her head held high, but it didn’t stop her knees from wobbling like they were made of jelly. After four weeks immersed in nature, the return to Manchester had taken some getting used to. Had trams always been that loud, or had she just grown too used to gentle birdsong?
One thing she hadn’t missed was the pigeons of Piccadilly Gardens. She tried to wipe the white patch of poo from the shoulder of her blazer as subtly as possible while checking in at reception, then made her way up to Brentworth’s floor in the shiny elevator. Anxiety was cold and heavy as clotted cream in her throat, but not nearly as delicious. Here, nothing had changed. Even she looked the same in the pristine mirror, her eyes tired and her hair slicked back into a neat ponytail that would make her head ache soon enough. And if that didn’t, the artificial lighting would. Being here only made her long for her pyjamas, which she’d lived in since coming home.
She took a deep breath and eyed the stain on the charcoal fabric, then decided there would be no scrubbing it off. Pulling her hair down, she arranged her blonde curls over the ruined shoulder just in time for the doors to ding open. Nobody looked up from their desks as she headed into the office, the quiet broken only by the sound of tapping keyboards and mouse clicks. It made her want to shudder. She had always felt… muted here. Like she was anonymous. No one.
But surely the promotion would change that. She would be a director, would decide how people should or shouldn’t work. She would dissolve the silence with orders and chitchat – with people who would probably dislike her, as everyone disliked their bosses, but what did that matter?
Pulling her CV and portfolio from her purse, Harper knocked on Chris’s door before she could second guess herself. Her palms were clammy, fingers shaking.
“Come in,” he called from the other side of the door, so she did.
Chris’s office was large and open, with a perfect view of the uneven skyline behind him. It was a sunny, frosty day in Manchester, but somehow the cold didn’t touch her the way it had in Scotland. Perhaps her hypothermia had affected her internal thermometer, or perhaps it was something to do with the glumness she’d been drowning in ever since getting home.
The older man gave her a clipped smile and gestured to the chair opposite. Chris was as plain as ever, with his blue collar askew, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, and his greying hair combed to one side. “Take a seat, Harper.”
“Thank you.” She sat, picking nervously at the corner of her leather-bound portfolio.
“It’s good to have you back. Thank you again for agreeing to the interview.”
“Of course. Thank you for inviting me.” Her words were wooden. The air around her thickened with her palpable discomfort, and she found it difficult to draw a full breath, just like the night she’d swum alone in the loch. For a moment, she wondered if the doctors had been wrong and she was still unwell. Then she realised that the problem didn’t start in her lungs, but with that same tightness around her chest that she used to wake up with daily.
Anxiety she’d never really acknowledged until it hadn’t been there anymore.
“How have you been spending your time off?” Chris asked through a sip of coffee, light bouncing off his shiny temple.
Time off ? Is that what they were calling it?
“I went away for a few weeks,” she said. “To Scotland.”
“Oh, very nice. I suppose you’re welcome, then, for the bit of free time!”
Her fingernails dug into her palms. “Hmm, yes. Thank you ever so much for putting me out of a job, Chris,” she blurted without thinking.
His laughter ebbed, and he shifted awkwardly.
Oops .
A year ago, she would have panicked, but she found that voicing her truth made her feel freer.
“Anyway, let’s get down to it, shall we?” He sat back in his swivel chair, crossing his hands over his belly. His shirt strained at the buttons, displaying stomach hair she’d rather not see. He’d always commented on her appearance before, noting when her skirt was a bit too short for the office or her hair looked unprofessional, and yet the man had the nerve to wear his tie askew and his clothes two sizes too small. “As you probably guessed, Debra has left us for a swanky new company around the corner, completely without warning, so I need to fill this position quite quickly.”
As he explained the expectations of the role, Harper found herself zoning out, fixating on the tall clocktower hotel bathing in the low sunlight behind him. She used to imagine working for a nice hotel like that, where she would get more creative freedom and perhaps market something more rewarding than the furnishings she promoted here.
In Belbarrow, she hadn’t had to imagine. She’d had a hand in helping the only B she’d often used it among friends she didn’t truly like, colleagues she’d later complain about having to spend time with. “Hey, if you get the job, perhaps we could sit down for coffee or something? We’ve lots to catch up on. I saw you took a trip down to Devon. How nice!”
“It was up to Scotland, actually.” And then Harper frowned, focus zooming in on Kenzie’s earlier words. “ Only if I get the job?”
“Well, yeah…” Kenzie chewed on her bottom lip. “It would be a bit inappropriate otherwise. I’m in a new relationship—”
“I know.” But it wasn’t lost on Harper that her job status was the only reason Kenzie might want to talk. For two years, she’d thought they’d been in love, and this was what it had whittled down to? A chat over coffee, but only if Harper got the job Kenzie was also vying for? Only on her terms?
It was bullshit, all of it. She’d done the same with Debra. They’d been the best of friends, heading out to lunches together so that Kenzie would always be the front runner for the best projects and the new training courses. She’d bet that, now Debra was gone, Kenzie wouldn’t even bother with her – or maybe she would, if her new job was as fancy as Chris had bitterly made out.
Either way, it was fake. It depended only on what Kenzie could gain from it. Harper found herself wondering how she hadn’t seen it all sooner. She’d been so in love with the strong, successful woman in front of her, outspoken and full of ambition and drive, that she hadn’t realised the cost of those qualities. The thorns adorning the roses.
“Things with Michelle are actually quite wonderful,” Kenzie continued in a chirpy tone. “She’s so great. She runs one of the most successful real estate businesses in the northwest, you know!”
“I don’t think I asked,” Harper stated bluntly.
Kenzie blinked, stunned. “Well, there’s no need to be so rude. I just thought you’d like to know.”
Harper shook her head. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to work with, for, or above Kenzie. She didn’t want to sit in this office. She didn’t want to spend her entire day promoting fixtures and fittings that were, quite frankly, only meant for colourblind grandmas.
She wanted to go home and cry, and then she wanted to figure out what the hell she was going to do with her life. She wanted to get back her laptop that she’d stupidly forgotten in Scotland, and finish her story. She wanted to say a proper goodbye to the friends she’d quickly learned to love: Eiley, Cam, Andy, Dot, Sorcha, Alice, Bernard.
Fraser.
Even if he didn’t want to hear it, she needed the closure.
She deserved it.
“Good luck with the job, Kenzie. I truly hope you get everything you want.” It wasn’t a lie. There was still a tender part of Harper that would always love Kenzie. She was so many of her firsts, and she wouldn’t forget the way they’d laughed and grown together.
But that was over now, and she was ready to be somebody new.
Before Kenzie had time to respond, she walked out of the office and didn’t look back.
“Harper, darling! What on earth—?” Harper’s mother gasped, bewildered, as Harper stepped into the house. She was sopping wet from a surprise rainfall that had caught her just as she’d alighted the train, and had followed her all the way to the little cul-de-sac she’d grown up on.
“I’ll make us a brew,” Mum decided after her eyes drifted from Harper’s waterlogged loafers to her no doubt dripping mascara.
Harper kicked off her shoes. She left a trail of water as she followed Mum into the kitchen, but she would worry about mopping it later. “I need you to tell me that I’m not making a complete and utter mess of my life,” she blurted, collapsing against the kitchen countertop.
With raised brows, Mum flicked on the kettle. Her round face, so much like the one Harper saw in the mirror every day, was a comfort she hadn’t known she’d needed. She’d been avoiding coming home, knowing that if she did, she might curl up in her childhood single bed, with its sheets smelling of lavender, and never emerge. Or she’d spill everything that had happened in Scotland, including the parts her parents were better off not knowing.
In truth, she’d wanted to avoid speaking about it at all, so she’d holed up in her flat until the interview, watching regency romances that did nothing to prevent her from thinking about Fraser and his annoying, beautiful face.
“Here.” Mum took a fluffy lilac bath towel from the clothes airer standing by the radiator, her face soft with sympathy. Harper already felt better, especially when she buried her face in the freshly laundered fabric.
Smoothing Harper’s hair with gentle fingers, Mum stood over her. “Why don’t you tell me what’s to do? I’ve been worried about you. So has your dad.”
“Is he at work?”
She nodded, rubbing warmth back into Harper’s damp clothes. “Tell you what. Go and get your jamas on, and I’ll grab the biscuit tin.”
Harper released a sigh into her mother’s scratchy cardigan. She’d missed her terribly, and only really realised it now.
Pyjamas sounded perfect, so she ran upstairs. Her old room was kept the way she’d left it when she’d moved out at twenty-two, from posters of a baby-faced One Direction ripped from We Love Pop magazine, to the shelf of young adult fantasy books she’d devoured during her summer holidays – the ones that had made her want to write in the first place. In her teenage years, everything had felt simple in this room, and yet she remembered the harder times too. Crying after school because people were just so mean, and why couldn’t she be pretty and skinny like the other girls? Discovering that, actually, she quite wanted to kiss her best friend, who happened to be an aggressively heterosexual girl. Chloe had never spoken to Harper again after she’d confessed as much. Then there had been studying to the brink of exhaustion during exam season until she’d wanted to erupt with rage from the slightest noise outside her window.
She’d grown so much since then. She liked her body, most of the time. She was proud to be bisexual, even if she still fell for all the wrong people. The only thing she wasn’t sure of now was whether she could confidently choose to pursue happiness over success. To remain unemployed for long enough to finish her book. To submit it to agents and publishers, even if she was only met with rejection. She didn’t want to fail. She’d worked her entire life not to fail, because her top grades and creativity were all she’d had to fall back on.
But that was why she was here. To figure it out. Maybe she would have to fail before she could move forwards.
She changed into pyjamas that were too small for her and unironically featured the words Dare to Dream . Maybe it was time to replace her nightwear with clothes she hadn’t picked out as a seventeen-year-old.
When she headed back downstairs, Mum was on her way into the living room with two mugs. “Better?” she asked.
“Better,” Harper agreed. They sat down, Mum draping a thick blanket over them both and pulling a plate of chocolate digestives closer from the coffee table. Not much had changed since Harper’s youth. Her school pictures littered the walls, one for every year, so that her passage from a buck-toothed six-year-old to a spotty adolescent was here for any visitors to see. At least she looked nice in her graduation picture, beaming as she held her degree and threw up her cap.
“Go on, then. Tell me everything.” Mum patted her thigh.
Harper sighed, and began. She told her about all the things she’d discovered in Belbarrow, from her love of volunteering at the preschool to the way she’d helped local businesses with their marketing plans. She told her about the book, leaving out the detail about it being quite spicy, and how she was most inspired when she was out doing things. Living her life. And then she told her about Fraser – again, leaving out the spicy parts. How they had been so good, and then so bad. She recounted the interview, and Kenzie, and how she really didn’t want to go back to Brentworth. How she might have to return to Belbarrow if only to claim her laptop, and the closure she hadn’t allowed herself before.
Mum was misty-eyed by the end. “You’ve had quite a journey, darling.”
Harper’s own throat was thick with tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was okay before. I was managing. I dealt with the fact that my job lacked passion, and that I always felt on the outside of everything, even in my own relationships. But now it’s like that’s not enough for me.”
“Because you know you deserve better, you silly sausage.” Mum squeezed her hand. “Harper, I have always been proud of you.”
“I know. Because I’ve always worked so hard. But what if I stop?”
“You would never stop. Even if you never set foot in an office again. Even if you have to move back home to chase your dreams as an author, you’d still be working hard. And if you decided it wasn’t for you? If you fancied lying around in your PJs all day with me? Well, as long as you did the hoovering, I’m sure we’d make it work.”
Harper laughed through her sob, pressing her head against Mum’s shoulder. She smelled like home: like milky tea and lemony soap. “I don’t want that. I want to be important. I want to be really good at something.” She squeezed her eyes closed, tasting her own tears. “I always feel like I have to chase something. I want to feel productive, like my life is worth something, because then maybe other people will see it, too.”
“But your life is already worth something simply because you’re kind and creative. It has nothing to do with your work or how you spend your time, or even how other people see you.” Mum kissed her hair lightly. “You don’t have to earn love or respect. You’re worthy of it just because you’re you. I’ve always known that, chicken. Why don’t you?”
She burned with grief for all the times she hadn’t understood such a simple notion. That she didn’t have anything to prove, especially not here.
She didn’t have an answer, but naturally, Mum did.
“You are a dope,” she decided. “You can accomplish all the things in the world, but it won’t mean anything if it doesn’t make you happy. It sounds like perhaps you were starting to see that in Scotland.”
“But he doesn’t love me, Mum. Not the way I love him.” And Harper did. She loved him. It was a rock-solid certainty, one that wouldn’t budge no matter how hard she willed it. He wouldn’t leave her alone. He hadn’t since the moment they’d met.
“So blooming what?” Mum burst out. “It sounds like you made lots of friends there. It sounds like everybody else saw just how lovely you are. If he doesn’t love you, it’s his loss.”
“And it wouldn’t make me look pathetic if I went back there?”
Mum shook her head. “It would make you look as strong as I know you are. If it’s what you need, then do it. Don’t think about anybody else. For once, Harper, just do it for yourself – because you want to, not because you feel like you should.” She sniffed. “Besides, that laptop cost a fortune. If you don’t go and get it, your dad will march there himself just to make sure he doesn’t have to buy you a new one.”
She choked on her tea. That was true. Dad hated frivolous spending.
“Thank you, Mum. I love you.”
“I love you, too, darling. More than anything.” Mum nudged her gently. “Now go and show him what a fool he is for letting you go.”